Why viXra?

In 1991 the electronic e-print archive, now known as arXiv.org, was founded at Los
Alamos National Laboratories. In the early days of the World Wide Web it was open to submissions
from all scientific researchers, but gradually a policy of moderation was employed to block articles that
the administrators considered unsuitable. In 2004 this was replaced by a system of endorsements
to reduce the workload and place responsibility of moderation on the endorsers. The stated
intention was to permit anybody from the scientific community to continue contributing. However many of us
who had successfully submitted e-prints before then found that we were no longer able to. Even those
with doctorates in physics and long histories of publication in scientific journals can no longer
contribute to the arXiv unless they can find an endorser in a suitable research institution.

The policies of the administrators of Cornell University who now control the arXiv are so strict that even when someone succeeds
in finding an endorser their e-print may still be rejected or moved to the "physics" category of the arXiv
where it is likely to get less attention. Those who endorse articles that Cornell find unsuitable are under
threat of losing their right to endorse or even their own ability to submit e-prints. Given the harm this
might cause to their careers it is no surprise that endorsers are very conservative when considering articles
from people they do not know. These policies
are defended on the arXiv's endorsement help page

A few of the cases where people have been blocked from submitting to the arXiv have been detailed
on the Archive Freedom website, but as time has gone by it has become
clear that Cornell has no plans to bow to pressure and change their policies.
Some of us now feel that the time
has come to start an alternative archive which will be open to the whole scientific community. That is why
viXra has been created. viXra will be open to anybody for both reading and submitting articles. We will
not prevent anybody from submitting and will only reject articles
in extreme cases of abuse, e.g. where the work may be vulgar, libellous, plagiaristic or dangerously misleading.

It is inevitable that viXra will therefore contain e-prints that many scientists will consider clearly wrong
and unscientific. However, it will also be a repository for new ideas that the scientific establishment is
not currently willing to consider. Other perfectly conventional e-prints will be found here simply because
the authors were not able to find a suitable endorser for the arXiv or because they prefer a more open system.
It is our belief that anybody who considers themselves to have done scientific work should have the right to
place it in an archive in order to communicate the idea to a wide public. They should also be allowed to stake
their claim of priority in case the idea is recognised as important in the future.

Many scientists argue that if arXiv.org had such an open policy then it would be filled with unscientific
papers that waste people's time. There are problems with that argument. Firstly there are already
a high number of submissions that do get into the archive which many people consider to be rubbish, but
they don't agree on which ones they are. If you removed them all, the arXiv would be left with only safe papers
of very limited interest. Instead of complaining about the papers they don't like, researchers need to find
other ways of selecting the papers of interest to them. arXiv.org could help by providing technology to
help people filter the article lists they browse.

It is also often said that the arXiv.org exclusion policies do not matter because if an amateur scientist were to make
a great discovery, it would certainly be noticed and recognised. There are two reasons why this argument is
wrong and unhelpful. Firstly, many amateur scientists are just trying to do ordinary science. They do not
have to make the next great paradigm shift in science before their work can be useful. Secondly, the best new
ideas do not follow from conventional research and it may take several years before their importance can be
appreciated. If such a discovery cannot be put in a permanent archive it will be overlooked to the detriment
of both the author and the scientific community.

Another argument is that anybody can submit their work to a journal where it will get an impartial review.
The truth is that most journals are now more concerned with the commercial value of their impact factor than
with the advance of science. Papers submitted by anyone without a good affiliation to a research institution
find it very difficult to publish. Their work is often returned with an unhelpful note saying that it will
not be passed on for review because it does not meet the criteria of the journal.

The visual design of viXra.org (but not its content) is a parody of arXiv.org to highlight Cornell University's unacceptable censorship policy.
Vixra is also an experiment to see what kind of scientific work is being excluded by the arXiv. But most of all it
is a serious and permanent e-print archive for scientific work. Unlike arXiv.org it is truly open to
scientists from all walks of life. You can support this project by submitting your
articles.